Vive Tracker Airsoft Gun Recoil (floating issues)

Hello,

We have mounted a vive tracker to an electric airsoft gun to achive realistic simulation of weapons in VR. As seen from the below video , communication is happening perfectly, we are able to reload/shoot and other functions are performing well.

The major issue we are facing is the tracker floating away due to the recoil. Initially we thought that maybe reflections was the culprit, but even after covering up every reflective surface in our play area the issue still persists.

The tracker is jittering and floating all over the place as can be seen in the video. The gun tracks perfectly if the recoil is turned off.

Is there a workaround to this? Has someone else encountered such issues too?

Re: Vive Tracker Airsoft Gun Recoil (floating issues)

@PramodPatel, I've alerted our tracker team to this. This may be impossible for them to reproduce since it may be recoil dependent but hopefully they can provide useful guidance. On first glance, I as well would assume this is a reflection issue. What is the gun made out of? Does it track perfectly for extended periods and only breaks when you fire? Does changing the orientation alter the misbehavior at all?

USB bandwidth/chipset compatibility can cause similar behavior in a controller; there is an off chance that it's related to that.

Re: Vive Tracker Airsoft Gun Recoil (floating issues)

hello VibrantNebula,

while we wait for response from the tracker team.. we have tried out making a vibration isolator for the tracker...seems the floating is down to 5% .. but obviously as with all isolators theres a terrible "jello" effect on the gun..working on it..hopefully should be able to resolve it in the coming week.

Re: Vive Tracker Airsoft Gun Recoil (floating issues)

This is a known issue with a verified solution. Forceful haptics create a disturbance that will cause the IMU to output erroneous data. A 3ms haptic pulse that couples into the IMU doesn’t create a 3ms acceleration disturbance. It causes the IMU to output that erroneous data for 100-200ms. If you attempt to ignore that data, it’s easy to chain together enough haptics that you are essentially ignoring the IMU forever. There is a method to filter the event that has been used successfully and it is outlined in the 1.5 Tracker Dev Guidelines that can be found that the link below. The Tracker FW build that supports this functionality is available now.

Even with this solution, you should provide damping and secure the Tracker firmly to the peripheral to mechanically isolate the IMU from the vibration source.

Re: Vive Tracker Airsoft Gun Recoil (floating issues)

It turns out that this the low pass filter settings are covered in the v1.5 Vive Tracker Dev Guidelines document (attached below) but the firmware wasn't pushed to SteamVR until the updated that I pinged you on above.